


To Sleep No More

by ActualWritesThings



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 21:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5430671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActualWritesThings/pseuds/ActualWritesThings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you are 19, your entire life changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sleep No More

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by thinking about all the stuff the Lone Wanderer's gone through. This was mostly inspired by my Lone Wanderer, but I tried to keep it ambiguous enough that it could apply to others.

When you are 19 your father leaves you. You're woken up in the middle of the night by your best friend shaking you and telling you that the only place you've ever called home is no longer safe, that people have already died. She gives you a gun. It's heavy in your hands, heavier still the after the first time you kill a man. You'd known him since childhood.

When you are 19 you leave the safety of the vault and emerge into a world that is far harsher than you've ever known was possible. You find a town built around a bomb and wonder if this is what life has become.

When you are 19 you learn what hunger is, what thirst is, what it's like to go days without sleep. You run out of stimpaks, running on fumes and chems and the fading hope of things getting better. Blood is dried on your hands. You don't remember how it got there. You don't think it's yours.

When you are 19 you nearly die more times than you can care to count, searching for your father, uncertain of what you will do when you find him. If you find him. People talk about your search, about the things you've done. No one asks about you.

When you are 19 you are called back to the place you once called home and asked to solve its problems. You do, and your only thanks is to be forced to leave again, this time for good. You try to warn them of the dangers they'll face if they leave. No one listens. No one even cares that your father is dead.

When you are 19 you learn that monsters are real. Some of them even look like monsters.

When you are 19 your father dies in front of you, in the project he abandoned for you, then abandoned you for. You don't have time to mourn, you have to escape and escort the scientists who see you only as your father's child.

When you are 19 you learn how to drink away your emotions, how to keep going even though you're falling apart. After all, people expect you to keep going.

When you are 19 you go into the same room your father died in, intending to finish what your father started.

When you are 19 you wake up.

When you are 20 you leave.

**Author's Note:**

> also posted to my [ tumblr](http://notactuallyherenotreally.tumblr.com/post/135237002917/so-instead-of-studying-for-finals-i-was-making)
> 
> Comments are very welcome!


End file.
